


But will leave you cold

by RandomK



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Depression, Feel free to suggest needed tags, Gen, Not a great headspace, POV Second Person, Sad John, Set during game timeskip, post sisters disaperance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:54:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26743222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RandomK/pseuds/RandomK
Summary: Josh, after his sisters disapear
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	But will leave you cold

**Author's Note:**

> "The anger in your heart warms you now, but will leave you cold in your grave. " By once-I-dreamt

The body is haunted by the spirit within it. 

Without the spirit, it would function as it always has. Eat, sleep, breathe, and exist, exactly how it is meant to be. Your body has suffered no physical harm, but the spirit within it is damaged, in mourning. 

Your mind is lost, adrift in the cold that their absence has left you in. Once you could have done anything with them. You could hear them just a call away, see them by walking down a hall. You could feel them warm and alive in your arms. 

Now there is only the cold. Now there are only memories and the ghosts your mind makes of them. They don't deserve it, no more than they deserved the fate that befell them, but it's all you can give them. All they left you with. 

It's hollow to cry over an empty grave. 

You feel hollow yourself, and you begin to shut down with the emptiness of it. 

You don't sleep, wide awake at night with nothing to think about. You don't eat, not when nothing will fill you. You don't talk, for in the absence of rage, there is nothing worth saying. 

Your mental health plummets. 

You don't know how long you stay like that. Time has lost meaning. It could be days. Months. Years. Seconds. It feels like forever. It could be forever. 

Caring seems like too much work. Easier to just lie down, stagnating until you are one with the earth below you. At least you would be of use to something then. 

Around you people keep trying to save you. 

And in some ways it works. Your body is alive and intaking food. You are sleeping. But your spirit haunts it -still empty- preventing it from making a complete recovery. 

Sometimes people visit. Sometimes it's your father. Sometimes it's Chris or Sam. On occasion it's your mother. But the majority of faces that you see are made up of medical professionals. 

They want you to live. 

The body survives, but the essence of what made you a person is gone with your sisters. They want you to live but all that remains is a ghost. 

You tell that to Sam one-day. You shouldn't have said anything, because it's Sam. Sam knows how to get you to talk, and once you start talking to Sam, it all comes spilling out. Talking to Sam is breaking the iceberg only to discover that the inside was all water, as it all comes out in a painful rush.

You think the iceberg was protecting you with its numbness. Feeling -is the bitter bun of cold, it's drowning with no way up up for air, being zapped by electricity you were not expecting. It's not dignified or kind, freeing or safe. It's so very painful. Dr. Hill seems pleased at the breakthrough.

Sometimes you retreat back behind the iceberg, for safety from the strength of it. But the iceberg has its own dangers. 

One numb day, you imagine being hit by a careless car, crossing the street. You imagine your misery ending, and that of your friends who still care, with something that is out of your control, not your fault. Imagining what they would feel, the blow of losing you so soon after your sisters, is what keeps you from taking that thought further. 

You never tell anyone. But it lingers, never completely leaving you. It doesn't scare you as much as it should. 

You start to look back, look into just what the hell happened that night while you were drunk. The night they died. What led to it. You ask Sam. You ask Matt. Your questions lead you to a video that leaves you shaking in rage. 

You want to destroy it, pretend it never happened. But the scene keeps playing out over and over again in your head. 

It's with rage that you start to take interest again. Gets you out of bed, and on to making plans. It won't last all the time, exhaustion winning out in the end. But it's a fire that you can rekindle again and again, with practice. 

A cold anger, that leaves you with energy for actions and no room for feelings. Just having a plan re-energizes you. 

On the surface you recover, seemingly back to your old self. The people in your life seem pleased enough by it. You know acting, movies run in the family. 

You haven't been as careful around Dr. Hill as you should have been. He alone knows that while you have recovered in your body, it is in control of a mind, a spirit not originally yours. He knows that your visions are worse, that you are motivated by vengeance. 

He tries to counter it, to argue. It goes worse and worse for him each time, until you leave him. 

You don't throw out your meds. You will run out eventually.

He still calls. You ignore them, but don't block him. In weaker moments you listen to the voice messages. He moves to texting. 

You tell Sam you want to heal. That you want to invite everyone up to the cabin again to remember and celebrate their lives. 

She looks relieved, and insists she will get everyone to attend. 

It almost makes you feel bad. Almost.

Sam will keep her promise. 

All that's left to do is prepare for their arrival. 

You shake your container, and discover that you are almost out of pills. You don't order more. 

Instead you get in your car and drive. 

You have a lot of work to do. 


End file.
